


my dearest love, know no shame (not all treasure is silver and gold, mate)

by hoard



Series: across the multiverse [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirates of the Caribbean Fusion, Ambiguous Relationships, Complicated Relationships, Desert Island Fic, In Media Res, M/M, Roughhousing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 14:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoard/pseuds/hoard
Summary: Draco has the utmost of confidence in his men — but Potter’s band of scoundrels have always been known to pull off incalculable feats of luck, even without their infamous captain.





	my dearest love, know no shame (not all treasure is silver and gold, mate)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milkandhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milkandhoney/gifts).



It’s largely a question of which of their crews will arrive to rescue them first. By way of a complicated series of events that are entirely Potter’s fault and not at all Draco’s, they’ve found themselves deposited on this small strip of an island, presumably left to die via exposure. That is, if they don’t kill one another first, which is a very near thing with how shot through Draco’s nerves are whenever Potter’s near, let alone with him as Draco’s sole company. Isolation madness can’t be much worse than this. Though with Draco’s luck, he might imagine Potter’s ghost haunting him.

Still, Draco’s a seaman through and through. And despite his most stringent intentions he isn’t as heartless as he should be, so he’s shared his daily catch with the other man; they’re far from starving. Potter had managed some wandless magic, casting a spell on the little brook on the opposite side from where they’d been dropped to extend the fresh water supply, so their basic needs are met. Thus far the weather hasn’t been too unkind. It’s just been a matter of waiting on the ships.

Draco has the utmost of confidence in his men — but Potter’s band of scoundrels have always been known to pull off incalculable feats of luck, even without their infamous captain. Their odds are about even, to Draco’s great displeasure.

Should it be hms slytherin that graces their shores, Draco will finally be able to see Potter locked up for good, and it will be his personal mission to escort him to the gallows on nassau himself.

“I can hear you plotting my demise all the way from over ‘ere!” Potter shouts. “Gotta act like seeing me hang is what you’re after, even to yourself? Can’t just picture me buggering you like we both knows this is really about?”

Draco grits his teeth, unable to ignore him. “Shut your mouth,” Draco yells back. It’s the first time they’ve spoken in days, likely Potter’s aim all along.

The first thing he’d done after their captors had dropped them onto the sandy shores of this purgatory was to draw a line across the western and eastern ends of the island, telling Potter that he’d be risking his life should he dare cross it.

“Not of a mind to hear the truth?” Potter sounds like he hasn’t a care in the world, making idle observations as if they’d just gone off-duty, waiting for the next set of orders to come in so they could sail off, the neither of them ever all that keen to be on solid ground for long. “Used to be you were the one who couldn’t keep from pulling me into dark li’l corners, wasn’t it?”

Face flushed, his throat closed tight, Draco scrambles to stand from the patch of marram grass he’d been sat on and races across the beach, over the line and firmly into Potter’s territory, launching himself at the man.

They tussle, the two of them too evenly matched to have many of their punches land. Draco is incensed, out for blood, but he’s got enough of his wits about him to realize that Potter’s holding back, blocking more than he is attacking. That he isn’t attacking at all, rather.

The knowledge deflates Draco, has him rolling off Potter and onto his back on the sand, panting up at the blinding sun overhead. He casts an arm over his face to block out the light, amongst other things.

He can feel it when Potter sits up, the sand shifting under him shift, the reverberations of it altering the ground under Draco’s own back. “How do you find things on my side?” Potter asks. “I don’t see why you trapped yourself over there.” Draco is very much aware that he isn’t speaking about their segregated island.

“I swore an oath,” is all that Draco says.

Potter hums. “I remember being sworn something, once upon a time.”

It grates on Draco. “You can remember that, but not what you yourself promised to crown and country?”

The sand shifts again, and then the sun is completely blocked from Draco’s face, a shadow blanketing him. He shifts his arm to look up at Potter standing above him, hand extended. “Didn’t seem like country nor the crown had any loyalty to me, so I figured why grant it my own?”

Words and emotions twist in Draco’s stomach, warring with one another, and with his mind. He takes Potter’s hand and allows himself to be pulled upright. He feels weary all of a sudden, at his rope’s end. Potter’s still got hold of his hand, holds onto it tight.

“Your crew has to think you dead, you know,” Potter says. “Duty paid, any salary or promises to be paid off to your brother, because I’m sure you wouldn’t leave it to that rat-bastard father of yours.” His hold tightens more still on Draco’s hand. “This could be the end of that life, and the start of one anew, as your own man.”

Draco knows what he’s doing, stood in awe of it for most of his youth, Potter rallying their men, and then watched in horror and hatred as he turned it into a recruiting tactic for the lawless, picking off the best of the king’s men to join his ranks instead.

Potter takes Draco’s silence to mean something, apparently, as he carries on. “They paint the world full of shadows and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light — their reasons, their judgment. Because in the darkness, there be dragons,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm, disdain. “But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true.” His eyes lock to Draco’s, and Draco doesn’t dare to look away, unflinching. “In the dark, there is discovery. There is possibility. There is freedom in the dark, once someone has illuminated it.”

It is with resolution that Draco holds Potter’s gaze. “You might have wormed your way into the head of all those men, Potter,” Draco all but spits. “It shall not work on me. In my head, you are not welcome.”

Potter’s face loses its serious edge, becoming amused again. “Use my name, Draco,” he says. “I know you haven’t forgotten it. I’m owed that at least, aren’t I?”

Draco finds Potter talking about debt to be as much a joke as anything, and it lightens his mood a bit. “Harry,” he says, and gets a rush seeing Potter’s mask crack for a moment, shock overtaking his face, a tender thing, before it’s gone. Going against Potter’s expectations has never failed in serving Draco well; it’s always been just about the only way for Draco to get the upper hand.

“Was that so hard?” Harry asks.

“Excruciating,” Draco says, only slightly exaggerating. Harry gives him an ironic look and then yanks on their hands, pulling Draco to him and capturing his lips.

Draco has been with no other since Potter absconded, a man loyal to all his vows, even the illegal ones, ones he never should have made in the first place. He doesn’t allow himself to consider whether Potter cast off his oath to Draco as easily as he had with those he made towards navy.

It is for this reason that Draco lets the kiss pass, even allows himself to luxuriate in it, for but a moment. Eventually Potter pulls back, nuzzling their noses together.

“The Gryffindor arrives at last,” he says, nodding over Draco’s shoulder. Draco turns to look, and sure enough. “Might I offer you passage?”

**Author's Note:**

> double stealth crossover, as this also is fused with starz' **[black sails](https://parryglasspools.tumblr.com/post/154772252515)** for maximum angsty [backstory](https://brucetwinksteen.tumblr.com/post/163384604033/but-the-lord-beheld-the-man-made-in-his-likeness).


End file.
